MY REVIEW - ( P.S. I am getting all the pics...

27 May 2016

3 months post

MY REVIEW - ( P.S. I am getting all the pics together, hang in there they ARE coming shortly, but in the meantime, read the review, it's very telling).

You can call me super paranoid. I must have read every single bad review of fat transfer and lasers that exists on real self. I went deep, I went back years. I looked nationwide too on real self and yelp, looking at every plastic surgeon, whether facial or dermatologic, board certified, and not. From Michael Law in North Carolina, to Brooke Seckel (Harvard) in Boston, to Richard Tholen (Mayo Clinic) in Minnesota, and Coleman in New York, who invented and pioneered one of the most prominent fat transfer techniques.

I had so many concerns that were based off of other people’s bad experiences, I was nearly certain no one could really guarantee a good result. At this moment, now having gone through the fat transfer (live fill, even better!) and ablative laser with Dr. Brent, I am actually a little surprised I pulled the trigger, but not that much anymore, thankfully. In the end, by about a years’ worth of research and more than 2 dozen consults, eating up tons of gas and time in traffic, and ridiculous unwarranted and truly and absolutely undeserved consult fees, I had enough evidence and to more than validate any good gut feeling, as I certainly wasn’t about to go off that alone. I am super picky on choosing a doctor. I ruled out every single doctor on Real Self and yelp who had 1 serious and very legitimate bad review, especially if it was fat transfer or laser related. I was lucky there was any doctors left, and even luckier the one I went with wasn’t just in my home state, but in my same county and within an hour’s drive. I almost chose another doctor in Bev Hills, I was really close, who specializes in fat transfers, and never had a bad review, up until very recently, just two months ago, (he got a bad review for an under eye fat transfer) just in time to save me from that hell, and hopefully you too. Anyway, I went to Brent for 3 consults, coming back confused with input from other doctors, and he took the time to sort through all the bs and that’s when that’s when the answers, revealed themselves, and the solution became clear.

So, this review is more of an expression of my gratitude to a team of 3 very special people who deserve far more than this, and will get it. It is also a gesture of genuine good will to you, whomever you are, in the interest of your happiness in your life, to help you avoid needless suffering, as of course I don’t wish that for you.

I am befuddled by the doctors that disregard that this is people’s lives, and happiness that they are messing with, and they forget and disregard that. If it wasn’t for my intuition and research I would have likely let an irresponsible Dr. ruin my life without a care in their mind to go home to their spouse and do the same thing the next day. The doctors who create shows from botched, and Dr. 90210, and Celebrity Plastic surgeons of Beverly Hills, each one are an absolute sham, and nowhere near what a real plastic surgeon is. Each of them on those shows has personally had a terrible review that has permanently harmed someone’s life. (Of course I checked myself!). Brent Moelleken has not. Around the time I was looking, Dr. Brent has 100+ reviews, and only 1 bad one, which consisted of a guy who allowed himself to be injected with silicone, which apparently is nearly impossible to fix, and Brent would have never suggested that he do that to himself, and was kind enough to at least try to fix it.

If you have time and desire to be on a self-promoting show like that it’s likely because you don’t have the business because you either made poor choices or poor decisions with patients that harmed your business or simply because you didn’t put the work into your education and medical training and especially, your ethics. This website and the doctors on it can lead you down the path to a permanent and painful hell. Not because it’s personal, but that’s just life, business, and other people’s self-interest, for you. I took the time to write this, as hopefully it’ll save you the time it took me, and guide you toward a man whose ethics and moral compass are unnaturally high and so geared toward your best interest that my own genuine attempt to hand him money to fix something was rejected multiple times because he knew it would be bad for me in the long run. And yes, I remember each of the doctors who said yes, we can get a great result for you on that, no problem. Guess what? Each of them have some pretty awful reviews and I feel terrible for their patients. At every possible avenue where he could make money off me, IF it wasn’t in my best interest, and not knowing what I didn’t know, he saved me from myself. For that, I will always be fiercely loyal to Brent, Penny and Crystal, as I personally know them to be golden human beings.

Here’s my experience.

CHEEK LIFT

I am 35 years old, and have some significant crepeyness, wrinkles, and hollowing under, and around my eyes. This was such a tough issue to deal with, mostly because the wrinkles occur dynamically, and not statically. Almost every surgeon suggested a bleph and a laser, but my eyes and the wrinkles around and under them are so technical, that the risk of changing the shape of my eyelids is pretty high. One of the questions I posed was answered by Dr. Brent, and he explained the risk to the eyelids, and gave an alternative. He suggested a cheek lift, (which he said he’s done hundreds of and has a patent on it on his wall). However I associated that with a face lift, and thought no way, I’m too young for that. But really, what I discovered a cheek lift is, is just a re-lifting of the mid face tissue, not a tightening. So I decided to go for that, as really the only safe alternative to a lower bleph. That wasn’t going to be enough to fix the problem on its own, but in combination, botox and a laser, it would give pretty much the same results as a lower bleph, which was again, too much risk. Just like a bleph, the cheek lift does have a scar next to each eye, but it fades, and he’s pretty ingenious about placing them, because he puts them right on the arched wrinkle lines themselves, which I thought was genus as it’s like painting on the lines themselves. But he doesn’t even tell you that, so he kind of undersells himself.
So for me, a guy who goes through the process of patenting his own method, to me at least, is not just sure of himself, and his craft, but so keenly interested in what he does, that he’s really the master of it. And that’s what I demand when it comes to my body.

The thing about these things, is you can get a cheek lift several times with no risk and you can only get a bleph once, maybe twice, but with so much risk, each time, and not see the final result of a sunken eye lid for months after the surgery. By the way, again, just because he calls it a cheek lift doesn’t mean it’s anything like a face lift; he’s just raising tissue that sunk and fell a bit back to its normal position. So as far as the cheek lift, I am satisfied, I look better with it, than without it. It’s a bit more expensive, but this is your face, and your happiness you know?

FULLY ABLATIVE C02 LASER

So now, I had to figure out how to tackle going about the laser. This, more than anything, was the single scariest part, and if you’ve done your reading on Real self, you know what I mean from the horror stories. I really wanted to have this done, however based on the dozens of reviews I’ve had and horror stories I shopped around for who could do this right, and still got nowhere. It was so frustrating. I asked Dr. Brent how long he’d been doing it, and he explained to me that he’s been doing 1 a week, every week, for at least the past 10 years, and that if anything, he probably under does it instead overdoing it, (settings wise), and that the chances of something going wrong were closer to 0 than 1. When I coupled that, with the number of great reviews he has, and the fact that on his door, it literally says “Neo Laser Surgery center,” I surmised that he could back up what he was saying, and that this was a huge part of his practice. I almost kind of resent him (haha) for not advertising more heavily, the fact that he specializes as much in C02 and IPL lasers, as every else he does, because I spent a long time looking elsewhere because I wasn’t sure how big a part of his practice this was. He did a fully ablative C02 full face laser during my surgery, and it went great. Within a week I watched my skin peel off and new skin grow, there was no pain, everything felt tighter, and I just used cetaphil and aquaphor. Now that I’m almost 3 months post op, I can tell you that my zits don’t come out as much, and my red spots have really reduced in size and pigment, and that’s cool, not to mention the shrinkage of the wrinkles. He said I can do the C02 every 5 years, and I might come back for an IPL as well. Again, feeling so lucky I found everything in one place after so much research.

FAT TRANSFER TO CHEEKS AND NASAL FOLDS (He has a patent on it, and calls it live fill).

So now, I had to figure out how to tackle a safe, and effective fat transfer to restore volume to my under eye area, and my cheeks and nasal labio folds. Well I can tell you, concretely, that THERE IS NO SAFE 100% SURE FIRE WAY TO DO AN UNDER EYE FAT TRANSFER. I came to see a few bad reviews in even the best doctors, but those with a negative fat transfer review were just too frightening to me, as the complications from such, are too laborious and expensive in both the mental strain, and cost, to make it even palatable as possibility.

Dr. Brent patented his own method of a fat transfer (live fill) that not only provides a much better retention rate, I believe of 70% but also makes it possible to be completely reversible if you should decide later that you don’t like it, which I doubt. I asked him for a fat transfer directly under the eyes, and he refused. I did meet with another well reviewed Dr. in 9201 Sunset, who does do that, and now the bad reviews are coming back to haunt him because there chance of a bad result in an under eye fat transfer is 75%. Dr. Moelleken will not allow any risk to his patients. That, for me, is everything. It’s a decision to get the best result available with no risk. Trying to do a fat transfer under the eyes, is the equivalent of a 25% win with a 75% chance of life time nightmare based on what I understood to be four layers of skin and impossible way to know which one the fat will lay under, so the only perfect solution to avoid this, is restylane. I’d rather do that and be happy every time, than risk a life of misery and expenses and time lost that could have been spent building great memories of enjoying life. So its restylane under the eyes, NOT juvederm, and not a fat transfer. Now as far as fat transfer to the cheeks, I wanted to address a major concern many people have voiced on here. That is that later on, the cheeks will become too large and out of proportion upon a slight weight gain. I told him that up front, and he knew to take the fat from a place that wasn’t going to grow easily with weight gain, or shrink easily with weight loss, so it was perfect. Some time has gone by since the surgery now, and I’ve gained and lost 5-10 like we all do as is normal, and there’s NO unwanted adjustments in the cheeks. You go with someone else, it may be great, it may not be, but you go with him, and you’re paying a bit more maybe, but for a Dr. who is more risk averse than you are.

Next, I also tried to see if I could have my cheeks thinned out (buccal lipectomy) as I had gained some weight, and lost it, and he refused, which cost him money, but he doesn’t care. He cared first and only for my happiness, and my best result, and he explained that 99% of people are not candidates for a buccal lipectomy because they’re cheeks are chipmunk like genetically, but because of weight gain. A buccal lipectomy for those 99% will result in the look of an apple doll, even though the first few years will bring a pleasing result. How could you not just love a guy who isn’t related to you but time and time again when given the opportunity to take your money, simply will not. How could you not be won over by that?

Anyway, I cannot describe the level elation you feel when you wake up after the surgery and he says you not just how great you did, but how he feels the results will be, the quality of the livefill was. Just so you know, in case it saves you time, There are 3 people in the USA I’ve found in all my research that can most likely deliver wonderful results with nearly zero risk in the most risky of procedures, and 2 are Harvard grads and one from the mayo clinic. That would Richard Tholen in Minnesota, and Brooke Sekel in Boston. The only one on the west coast was Brent Moelleken.

I mean if you have read peoples horror stories about fat grafting gone wrong alone, or a terrible laser experience, even with a non-ablative laser, than you can imagine how good of a surgeon you’d have to be to be able to consistently deliver wonderful fat grafting AND laser experiences. Hopefully you’re getting a sense of my gratitude and appreciation for a man who put his time in to deliver a world class experience.

LIPO

I had been through plastic surgery before, had a little lipo done. My other Doctor was great and such a golden human being also. His name is Dr. Andrew Cohen, who specializes in breasts mostly, and half of my lipo results were completed by him and he is up there with the best of them, just an absolute saint with a golden heart, and he did a very meticulous and thorough job on me, and you’ll see my review under his page as well!

However, for fat grafting I know it was something he didn’t specialize in, which was totally fine. So because I was getting fat grafting done, I had a few remaining areas left that were highly complex that some plastic surgeons were skeptical of doing, which were my chest and abs, and lower flank areas. Brent was willing to work on these, and my understanding is that those were not for the faint of heart. He did a good job on those, and they look great.

BRENTS EXPERIENCE AND QUALIFICATIONS (It matters)

By the way, did I mention Dr. Brent was a U.S. Army veteran, who still volunteers at the VA? Well as a vet myself, it goes a long way with me.

This guy has like 5 real actual government patents, from the cheek lift to the 360 facelift or whatever and you can see them up on his wall. Based on the results of the work he’s done I can tell you that you don’t through the work of going and get a patent unless the results of his idea are far better in terms (in my situation especially) of the lack of scarring in the result that was achieved, that are just so far beyond what the other guys are doing.

When you look past his reviews, and at his website, you come first his education. He is one of 3 doctors in the world I believe to be double board certified with an education from Harvard, Yale, and UCLA. If you go even further, you’ll see he has hundreds of publications which is more than most Doctors, who maybe have 50 to 100 from what I found.

BEDSIDE MANNER

Next comes the bedside manner. For me, what this is about, is the ability to ask your doctor questions based on research you’ve done, before you’ve even paid for the surgery, but after you’ve had a consult. Dr. Brent was so quick, and so consistent in his replies, it was just profound. He never ceased to remind to me email him or come in to chew the fat, and this was his own words. For as busy as he is, that is just awesome. I came out of this whole thing so much more informed and properly informed I should say, than any amount of research from this website. You have to understand that Doctors are people too. They want to make money, so when you find someone who will say no, to money they could have made off of you, you have to seriously consider tossing in the trash, almost everything else you’ve been told by those who said yes. I cannot underscore enough just how ethical and moral he is. You just don’t know what you don’t know as a patient. He knows, he cares, and it does matter.

I think the bottom line for me, is just the gratitude to have found someone who not only has a passion for something would end up being so helpful for me to have as an option, but the fact that he had such drive and such determination to seek education at all three of the most prestigious schools in the USA, (Harvard / Yale / UCLA) and then go so far as to take all of his experience, and come up with a better, safer way to give the best result, and then make it reversible. And of course he patented it, as he should; he brought what all plastic surgeons do, to the next level. I don’t what is the cost is, I know what it takes to sleep at night, and between that, and a 1 bad fat transfer review from all other potential options, I couldn’t afford to see anyone else. I mean, if you can find another doctor who can do the same, I wish you luck. The thing that I still find amazing is that there comes a point where you feel like asking too many questions will annoy a doctor, and some have even turned me a way, and thank god they did. It says and means so much to me that Brent is as immediate and patient, and consistent with his response as he is.

PENNY, CRYSTAL, AND THE OFFICE

Now let’s talk about Penny. This woman is something else. Beyond becoming close on a personal level, I find it impressive that she could so quickly ascertain attractive things about people and give such undeniably genuine complements. You expect to have some questions answered or maybe get surgery but it’s pretty refreshing when you come out of the office feeling better about yourself before you ever had anything done. What is they say? People never forget how you made them feel. Penny made me feel good in a way surgery couldn't. Thats special to me. She’s got a heart of gold and such a warm smile, for as busy as she is, I don’t think that Dr. Moelleken is paying her to be so overly outgoing in her warmth and cheeriness. I was surprised that Penny and I could make each other laugh the whole time and never once did she forget to do or provide everything I needed, before, during and throughout. It’s quite impressive; to Brent I’m sure as well. She is such a giving person, and a cheer leader in making you feel good about yourself, and totally comfortable. Oh, right I said that. duhh.. Anway, She may have had a few light things done by Dr. Brent a decade ago, and to attest to his work, she looks great, and that was quite a vote of confidence, and yes Penny, your cheeks should be trademarked gorgeous face. Thanks a lot mom and dad!

Now for Crystal. Do tell me, how many women are naturally beautiful as this one, yet so down to earth and caring even in the initial phases. For as busy as Crystal is, I’m amazed she can always make time to talk to me about my life and hers when there seemingly is none. I’ll tell you, from my experience, many beautiful women don’t have such developed personalities because they never had to. So, congrats on that one Crystal. Anyway, another testament to Brent’s eye for beauty and brains, and so yes, better put that to work.

Anyway, so far so good, and great to have made some new friends in this world too. Any questions, you can send me a message.

SUMMARY

I can tell you it’s impossible to find another Dr. not only in CA, but nationwide who has 100+ reviews, the best education in the world, triple board certified is it? and with a handful of patents and hundreds of fat transfers and lasers with no bad reviews. Naturally, a guy who has a patent on fat transfers, knows how to do it right. I’m 35 now, but in 20-25 years or so I’ll probably need a face lift, and Brent patented his own 360 degree face lift, so I’m set for that too.